Ever Searching
by Pollux Unbound
Summary: Yeah, they say you're dead. Alright. I get that a lot. But at any rate, you're still coming back to me, aren't you? GrimmIchi One-shot Drabble. Ichigo's POV.


**Title**: Ever Searching

**Summary**: Yeah, they say you're dead. Alright. I get that a lot. But at any rate, you're still coming back to me, aren't you? GrimmIchi. One-shot. Drabble. Ichigo's POV.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Bleach; Kubo Tite does.

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You can't retract the truth, I mean don't even try, seriously. So I'm wondering how to proceed now that all is over. To start with, is there anything to do at all? Well, there are those spontaneous roles these Shinigami people are appointing me; slay hollows here and there without distinction whatsoever, attend meetings and pull puns with Renji and the gang, and honestly, nothing is quite worth jumping about in crazy laughter. So I look around, groping aimlessly for you, seeing worldly features I somehow recognize or believe I recognize, finally understanding I'm no more than the ash of my former flame. Soul Society won alright; perhaps my joy could've been more profoundly expressed than nodding in acknowledgement amidst their happy tears and boisterous cheers. It's a happy world right now which, for me, is far from being the case.

Only that you aren't here and so far as my eyes can determine, will never be sighted again.

Never will be?

It's just this type of information which makes one think how much of it is true although it's a fact that's been made repeatedly clear over and over. Nah, that's just paradoxical. Like, it has been proven eight times over and there's just no way anyone would bother to reprove the whole thing again, at least not in an eternity. They say you're dead. Dead among your bastard allies whose bodies were bottled for autopsies and research purposes. Yours was never found. Did you evaporate to thin air, turn to dust and become one with wind? Or are you still out there? Because if you are, mind coming on to me one more time? For the last time? For old times' sake? Dead or alive?

Renji would tell me to fix myself already which just about gives me all the more reason to lose the conviction to, er, follow the Shinigami road. How do you fix something that's no longer here or there? I mean, I'm not one to force myself to believe in the impossible; that's just sad and I hate sadness more than anything. So maybe I hate you. Obvious reason is that your absence is thrusting this gut-wrenching sorrow in me. You'd probably laugh at me if you see how I'm faring along. On second thoughts, would you even recognize me? What are you, a subtle remembrance?

You are dead. But as far as what my reason begets, you're dead only in their minds and hopeful aspirations. Fools. I'm not inventing this from some deep yearning of beholding you once again. I'm sure of it. Yeah, you're virtually nowhere; it's not like the world hasn't made that apparent enough seeing as I have combed the entire globe for traces that can be associated to you even in the faintest. So you're gone; there's no profit in reestablishing that. But why does that mean you're dead? And they'd ask me, where's the proof of the contrary? All, perhaps, but maybe except for the truth. Maybe what I need to do is to busy myself trying to restore you in the vacancies of my mind instead of pursuing this hopeless search. And with that, perhaps, somehow, sometime ahead, you'd realize that it's your turn to look for me.

So, there, no one can make truer the fact that you're neither here nor there but what exactly is the difference? All are in some way the same, or so they say. I will console myself with that mindset and hope, hope that you will continue to be. Do you know that's possible? If I can just hold on to my mind for, say, forever, you'll live still, and so will I. Isn't that what you had always wanted? Immortality and eternal youth? Isn't eternity our mutual goal? If I say I can give it to you, would you cease to be an apparition? Will you clear away this heavy vagueness around me? And be with me, finally? Sure, souls can be destroyed and everything has an end. But like a candle flame while it's burning, it's real enough, isn't it? Like, when you touch it, you'd scald your skin but after the time it goes out and you don't see it anymore, how could someone determine it has indeed ceased to exist?

So now I lift my voice to you, Grimmjow Jaggerjack whom I love; there's this one selected person on Earth who's preserving your existence for more than a life's worth. And now that it's time for you to pay that person your due, you can rise from being a mere phantom now.

If not, at least come back, come back to me.

**END**

**A/N**: Fic idea is Night Strider's, the best effing writer in here, at least for me.


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